Where are the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel?
Speculating on the whereabouts of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel has been another longstanding tradition, popular for longer than the search for the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail. Suggestions for where the tribes ended up have ranged from America and Britain to India and Africa—and virtually everywhere in between.
In order to investigate this mystery properly, we will need to explore the chain of events that led to the destruction of the northern kingdom of Israel at the hands of the Neo-Assyrians in 720 B.C. We shall also need to look at the Neo-Assyrian practice of deporting captured peoples to the far corners of their empire, paying particular attention to what happened in northern Israel during the period of Neo-Assyrian aggression from 733 to 720 B.C. Then, and only then, will we be in a position to answer the age-old questions concerning the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel: Where did they go and where are they now?
Before we begin, I should also note that in many ways, especially from an ancient historian’s point of view, this is the most interesting and technical mystery we will explore. It offers us a chance to study some extra-biblical accounts written by contemporary Neo-Assyrian kings—the very ones the Bible accuses of having attacked the northern kingdom of Israel and created what we now call the missing Ten Lost Tribes—and wrestle with some of the problems that emerge when these sources are compared with the biblical account. We have not always had the chance to do this with previous mysteries, so it is a pleasure to be on firmer ground, because by this point the biblical account seems actually to reflect history as we know it from other independent sources (even if the Bible and these sources aren’t always in complete agreement). From this vantage point, we can investigate the Ten Lost Tribes from a variety of angles and finally be able to utilize three separate and independent sources: the biblical account, the Neo-Assyrian inscriptions, and the archaeological remains.
Neo-Assyrian kings came into contact with the northern kingdom of Israel from the mid-ninth century B.C. onward. This image appears on a fresco in the palace of Tiglath-pileser III. (Illustration Credits 7.1)
If we begin by examining the account in the Hebrew Bible, it is clear that the end was in sight when the Neo-Assyrian King Tiglath-pileser III (who ruled from 744 to 727 B.C.) turned his attention to the northern kingdom of Israel and its capital city, Samaria. The first time the fighting occurred was during the reign of Menahem, probably in 738 B.C. According to the biblical account, Menahem paid Tiglath-pileser—whom the Bible calls “Pul” (probably his real name, as opposed to the adopted throne name Tiglath-pileser)—a large and perhaps exaggerated sum of money, most likely to help him secure his place on the throne. The Bible says, “King Pul [Tiglath-pileser III] of Assyria came against the land; Menahem gave Pul a thousand talents of silver, so that he might help him confirm his hold on the royal power. Menahem exacted the money from Israel, that is, from all the wealthy, fifty shekels of silver from each one, to give to the king of Assyria. So the king of Assyria turned back, and did not stay there in the land” (II Kings 15:17-20).
Just a few years later, Tiglath-pileser III attacked Israel during the reign of Pekah, around 733 B.C. This time Tiglath-pileser instigated the first known deportation from the northern kingdom of Israel, when the first members of the Ten Lost Tribes were carried off into exile. We are told in the Book of II Kings: “In the days of King Pekah of Israel, King Tiglath-pileser of Assyria came and captured Ijon, Abel-beth-maacah, Janoah, Kedesh, Hazor, Gilead, and Galilee, all the land of Naphtali; and he carried the people captive to Assyria” (15:27-29).
The account in I Chronicles provides more information: “So the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of King Pul of Assyria, the spirit of King Tiglath-pileser of Assyria, and he carried them away, namely, the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, and brought them to Halah, Habor, Hara, and the river Gozan, to this day” (5:26). We even learn the name of an Israelite chieftain who was carried off: “Beerah … whom King Tiglath-pileser of Assyria carried away into exile; he was a chieftain of the Reubenites” (5:6).
Then came Shalmaneser V, the successor to Tiglath-pileser III, who ruled Assyria from 727 to 722 B.C. He apparently attacked the northern kingdom of Israel twice during his reign. The first time, King Hoshea of Israel gave in right away and became Shalmaneser’s vassal. But almost immediately, and for reasons that are unclear (but probably involve a revolt on Hoshea’s part), Shalmaneser imprisoned Hoshea. The biblical account states:
In the twelfth year of King Ahaz of Judah, Hoshea son of Elah began to reign in Samaria over Israel; he reigned for nine years. He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, yet not like the kings of Israel who were before him. King Shalmaneser of Assyria came up against him; Hoshea became his vassal, and paid him tribute. But the king of Assyria found treachery in Hoshea; for he had sent messengers to King So of Egypt, and offered no tribute to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year; therefore the king of Assyria confined him and imprisoned him. (II Kings 17:1-4)
We are then told that Shalmaneser returned to Israel and besieged the capital city of Samaria for three years before finally capturing it. At this point, he carried off numerous people into exile, where they most likely joined those who had been taken away by Tiglath-pileser III. The Hebrew Bible states:
Then the king of Assyria invaded all the land and came to Samaria; for three years he besieged it. In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria; he carried the Israelites away to Assyria. He placed them in Halah, on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes. (II Kings 17:5-6)
These details are repeated soon after in the Book of II Kings (although this time in relation to the reign of Hezekiah of Judah):
In the fourth year of King Hezekiah, which was the seventh year of King Hoshea son of Elah of Israel, King Shalmaneser of Assyria came up against Samaria, besieged it, and at the end of three years took it. In the sixth year of Hezekiah, which was the ninth year of King Hoshea of Israel, Samaria was taken. The king of Assyria carried the Israelites away to Assyria, settled them in Halah, on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes. (18:9-11)
To replace the deportees, we are told, “The king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria in place of the people of Israel; they took possession of Samaria, and settled in its cities” (II Kings 17:24). Thus, the land was instantly repopulated by people from other areas controlled by the Neo-Assyrians (modern Syria and Iraq, as well as the Syro-Arabian desert). Those Israelites who were not deported reportedly intermarried with the new arrivals. They became the Samaritans, mentioned in both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament.
In sum, according to the biblical account, Shalmaneser V attacked Samaria and the northern kingdom of Israel twice. The first time, he imprisoned King Hoshea. The second time, he besieged the city of Samaria for three years and eventually captured it. At that point, he “carried the Israelites away to Assyria … He placed them in Halah, on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes” (II Kings 17:5-6).
We are not told, however, how many Israelites were deported. Moreover, the places in Assyria where Shalmaneser V deported the Israelites are nearly the same ones listed in I Chronicles 5:26, but in that case Tiglath-pileser III is given credit for sending the exiles to those places. Most important, the Bible does not really announce the end of the kingdom of Israel; it just seems to have simply happened, with little mention.
Is this really what took place? Was it really Shalmaneser V who destroyed the northern kingdom of Israel and sent the Ten Lost Tribes into oblivion? Or was someone (or something) else involved? Could the biblical writers have been pointing their fingers at the wrong party? And how many people were actually taken off into exile? Did all of the ten tribes get exiled, and did they really end up where Shalmaneser says they did? If so, are they still in those places today?
Clearly, before we can investigate the Ten Lost Tribes further, we must look at the extra-biblical textual sources and the archaeological data that is available.
WE CAN START our discussion of the extra-biblical material on a positive note: Tiglath-pileser III’s own inscriptions confirm the biblical account of the separate interactions between Tiglath-pileser III and the two kings of Israel, Menahem and Pekah. One of these inscriptions says, “I received tribute from … Menahem of Samaria.” Another says:
As for Menahem I overwhelmed him like a snowstorm and he … fled like a bird, alone, and bowed to my feet. I returned him to his place and imposed tribute on him, to wit: gold, silver, linen garments with multicolored trimmings … I received from him. Israel … all its inhabitants and their possessions I led to Assyria. They overthrew their king Pehak and I placed Hoshea as king over them. I received from them 10 talents of gold, 1,000 talents of silver as their tribute and brought them to Assyria.
In additional inscriptions from his annals, Tiglath-pileser claimed that he spared only the city of Samaria, and captured and annexed the rest of the northern kingdom of Israel. We are finally also given the specific number of captives that he carried off into exile in Assyria: 13,520. And we can probably date his attack on Israel and Samaria to the year 733 B.C., according to the most recent scholarly discussions on the topic.
Thus, we can feel confident that we are in an era where the biblical account can be tested against historical inscriptions from other civilizations that interacted with the kingdoms of Israel and Judah during the early first millennium B.C. Unfortunately, we begin running into problems almost immediately. For example, in his inscriptions, Tiglath-pileser III does not state the specific locations in Assyria to which he carried off the Israelites; he only says “to Assyria.” But what about the passage from the Book of I Chronicles, which does list specific locations? As we have just noted, the exile locations listed in I Chronicles are virtually the same as those given in II Kings, including Halah, Habor, and Gozan. While it is possible that each set of deportations took the exiles off to the same destinations, biblical scholars consider it more likely that the passage in I Chronicles is a late addition to the Bible and that “the mention of the exile locations may be anachronistic or a confusion in transmission.” As a result, the references in I Chronicles are usually ignored by most scholars, or relegated to a footnote, and we are left to wonder where in Assyria Tiglath-pileser III actually deposited his Israelite captives.
Comparing extra-biblical inscriptions of Shalmaneser V, successor to Tiglath-pileser III, to the biblical account has also given rise to some debate among biblical scholars, archaeologists, and ancient historians. The problem here is that, for some unknown reason, we have been left with no inscriptions of Shalmaneser V, and therefore have no confirmation by his own sources that he actually captured Samaria and deported some of the inhabitants of Israel’s northern kingdom, as the biblical account states.
Fortunately, we do have the Babylonian Chronicles, a contemporary record kept by the Neo-Babylonian priests describing the chief events of each year for much of this period. These state: “On the twenty-fifth of the month Tebet [in 726 B.C.:] Shalmaneser ascended the throne in Assyria.… He ravaged [or ruined] Samaria.” This would seem to provide confirmation of the biblical account, but some scholars see it only as a reference to his first attack, when he imprisoned Hoshea; they see no mention here, or any confirmation, of his second attack and besieging of Samaria. The same Babylonian Chronicles then tell us: “The fifth year [722]: Shalmaneser died in the month Tebet. For five years Shalmaneser ruled Akkad [Babylonia] and Assyria. On the twelfth day of the month Tebet, Sargon [II] ascended the throne in Assyria.”
This is surprising, for the name Sargon II is nowhere to be found in the biblical account. He simply seems to be missing from the Hebrew Bible, though we know him well from other, extra-biblical inscriptions. He was indeed Shalmaneser V’s successor, and he ruled Assyria from 722 to 705 B.C. Moreover, in the extra-biblical inscriptions it is Sargon II who claims credit for capturing the city of Samaria and deporting the inhabitants of the northern kingdom of Israel. Did he usurp the deeds of his predecessor or is something else going on? Who was responsible for the destruction of the northern kingdom and the deportation of its inhabitants, the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel?
At Sargon’s palace in Khorsabad, Assyria, there are inscriptions recording his attack on Samaria and the exile of its inhabitants to Assyria. In addition, a wall relief in Room 5 of the palace may depict the city of Samaria and its defeated defenders. All of Sargon’s inscriptions dealing with Israel’s northern kingdom are linked to his campaign of 720 B.C. Three of the more relevant inscriptions read as follows:
I besieged and conquered Samaria … led away as booty 27,290 inhabitants of it. I formed from among them a contingent of 50 chariots and made remaining [inhabitants] assume their [social] positions. I installed over them an officer of mine and imposed upon them the tribute of the former king.
[The Sa]marians with a king [hostile to] me consorted not to do service and not to bring tribute and they did battle. In the strength of the great gods, my lords I clashed with them, [2]7,280 people with their chariots and the gods they trust, as spoil I counted, 200 chariots (as) my royal muster I mustered from among them. The rest of them I caused to take their dwelling in the midst of Assyria. The city of Samaria I restored, and greater than before I caused it to become. People of lands conquered by my two hands I brought within it; my officer as prefect over them I placed, and together with the people of Assyria I counted them.
The tribes of Tamud, Ibadid, Marsimanu and Haiapa, distant Arabs, who inhabit the desert, who know neither high nor low officials, and who had not brought their tribute to any king—with the weapon of the god Assur, my lord, I struck them down [in 716 B.C.], the remnant of them I deported and settled them in Samaria.
Israelites carried off into exile by the Neo-Assyrians may well have ended up in major cities such as Nineveh, where these statues stood at the gates of King Sargon II’s palace. (Illustration Credits 7.2)
These tell us all we need to know. In eight separate inscriptions, Sargon II claims that he besieged and conquered Samaria. Furthermore, he states that he carried off a total of 27,280 people into exile in Assyria. This probably represents the total number of deportees from both Samaria and the entire northern kingdom (the first number given, 27,290, is corrected in the other inscriptions). Later, he repopulated Samaria with “distant Arabs” he had conquered elsewhere, rebuilt Samaria and its surrounding area, and made it into an Assyrian province, known as Samerina, complete with an appointed governor.
THERE IS NO QUESTION that the Neo-Assyrians destroyed the northern kingdom of Israel and deported its inhabitants into exile, but we are still left with the question of who did it. The Bible never mentions Sargon II, instead giving credit (or blame) to Shalmaneser V. Was it Shalmaneser V, as per the biblical account, or was it Sargon II, as per his own extra-biblical inscriptions? Did Sargon II claim credit for something his immediate predecessor did, or did the Bible get its facts mixed up?
After decades of scholarly debate, many possible suggestions have been put forward, but the problem has never been resolved. Of these suggestions, three hypotheses seem the most probable. The first suggests that while the biblical account does leave out Sargon II, the final capture of Samaria, and the downfall of Israel’s northern kingdom, it is correct in what it says about Shalmaneser V—that he, too, captured Samaria and exiled some of its inhabitants. If this is the case, then Samaria was besieged and captured twice (probably in 722 B.C. and 720 B.C.) and there were two separate deportations within a span of just a few years. But here, the biblical account would be guilty of omitting key events—completely leaving out Sargon II, the second capture of the city in 720 B.C., and the final ending to the northern kingdom of Israel.
Eminent scholars Mordechai Cogan and Hayim Tadmor have put forth an alternative version of this first hypothesis in the most recent scholarly translation and commentary on the Book of II Kings. They argue that the account does not stop short, but rather that a later editor was guilty of “telescoping” the events and combining the two sieges into one. Thus, they say, “[The text] reads as if the same king of Assyria besieged Samaria … took it … and exiled Israel to Assyria. Historically, however, this construing of the text cannot stand. Two kings of Assyria oversaw the events referred to in v. 6; Shalmaneser V captured Samaria; Sargon II exiled Israel.… The present telescoping of events might be as early as the Deuteronomic editing of Kings [that is, in the sixth century B.C.].” They continue, “The Assyrian account … makes it clear that the biblical account … has telescoped two events: the fall of Samaria to Shalmaneser in 722, after the three-year siege; and the captivity of Samaria two years later in 720 by Sargon.”
The second hypothesis tries to meld the biblical and extra-biblical accounts into a coherent whole by suggesting that there was only one siege but two Neo-Assyrian kings who were involved. It posits that Shalmaneser V began the siege, as the biblical account states, but then died (of natural causes) before he could conclude it. Sargon II then continued the siege, ended it by capturing the city and deporting the inhabitants in 720 B.C., and claimed credit for the entire episode, as recorded in his inscriptions.
The third hypothesis gives the Bible the most credit. Set out most recently by Nadav Na’aman, professor of Jewish history at Tel Aviv University, this suggestion contains three major points: Sargon II is indeed mentioned in the Bible, but not by name; Samaria was only besieged once, by Sargon II; and Shalmaneser V did not carry off any of the Israelites into exile—it was all Sargon II’s doing.
How does Na’aman explain this? He simply suggests, like Cogan and Tadmor above, that the biblical account that mentions Shalmaneser in II Kings 17:1-6 is actually an account of two campaigns—that of Shalmaneser V (II Kings 17:1-4) and Sargon II (II Kings 17:5-6). However, according to Na’aman, rather than telescoping the two campaigns, the later editor kept them separate but simply didn’t mention Sargon by name: He just referred to Sargon as “the king of Assyria.” If Na’aman is correct, we only have to insert the words “Sargon II” and two commas into the biblical account in order for it to make sense and to give us the full story:
In the twelfth year of King Ahaz of Judah, Hoshea son of Elah began to reign in Samaria over Israel; he reigned for nine years. He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, yet not like the kings of Israel who were before him. King Shalmaneser of Assyria came up against him; Hoshea became his vassal, and paid him tribute. But the king of Assyria found treachery in Hoshea; for he had sent messengers to King So of Egypt, and offered no tribute to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year; therefore the king of Assyria confined him and imprisoned him. Then [Sargon II,] the king of Assyria[,] invaded all the land and came to Samaria; for three years he besieged it. In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria; he carried the Israelites away to Assyria. He placed them in Halah, on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes. (II Kings 17:1-6)
Other Israelites carried off into exile by the Neo-Assyrians may well have ended up in the Zagros Mountains. (Illustration Credits 7.3)
Na’aman concludes, “Sargon II is the king who conquered Samaria, annexed it to the Assyrian territory, deported its people and brought in others to take their place.” If Na’aman is right, Shalmaneser V did interact with Israel and take Hoshea prisoner, but he did not besiege the city of Samaria for three years or carry off any inhabitants. More important, in this scenario, the Bible does not omit Sargon II; it simply doesn’t name him, just as it never names the pharaoh of the Exodus. And it also has not left out the ending of the story. It is Sargon II who besieges Samaria, carries off the Ten Lost Tribes, and brings an end to the northern kingdom of Israel.
While I find Na’aman’s suggestion to be an elegant solution to a complex problem, not all scholars support his interpretation. So the argument continues and will likely only be resolved by the discovery of additional textual inscriptions (Shalmaneser V’s in particular would be most helpful).
What about the Ten Lost Tribes? Taking into account both the biblical and the extra-biblical evidence, we know that between the efforts of Tiglath-pileser III, Shalmaneser V, and Sargon II, more than 40,000 people were carried off from 733 to 720 B.C. (13,520 people in the first conquest and 27,280 in the second). Moreover, we know that these captives were exiled to Assyria, with a few specific locations given in the biblical account.
As we have mentioned, the Bible says the deported members of the Ten Tribes were sent off into exile “in Halah, on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.” Although there has been much speculation about where these areas are, scholars are confident that they were all in Mesopotamia, within the core of the Assyrian Empire proper. For instance, Halah was “a district north of Nineveh” (modern Iraq); Gozan was “situated on one of the branches of the Habor river in northern Mesopotamia” (modern Syria) and is probably identified with Tell Halaf; and the cities of the Medes “were located in the Zagros mountains” (modern Iraq).
If the biblical account in I Chronicles is considered accurate, then Tiglath-pileser III carried off the captives to the same locations in Assyria that Sargon II did (or Shalmaneser V, if we don’t agree with Na’aman’s suggestion). However, if we consider the account in I Chronicles to be a later, anachronistic addition to the biblical text, as many biblical scholars do, then we are simply left with one specific set of locations that Sargon II/Shalmaneser V carried the deportees off to, and a more general designation from II Kings of “Assyria” for Tiglath-pileser III’s earlier captives. It is of interest to note, though, that these specific locations are only ever named in the Bible; the Neo-Assyrian inscriptions only say “to Assyria.”
But were all members of the Ten Tribes really carried off into oblivion or did some remain behind? Is there any truth to the mystery of the Ten Lost Tribes? And when and where do we first hear about these Ten Lost Tribes, meaning at what point in history is the story first told?
This last question is probably the easiest to answer. Although they are not specifically called the “Ten Lost Tribes,” references to the scattered peoples of Israel are found in the biblical books of the Latter Prophets: Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. The prophet Isaiah was active just after the northern kingdom of Israel had been destroyed by the Neo-Assyrians, while the Books of Jeremiah and Ezekiel were compiled soon after the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in 586 B.C. In fact, the Book of Isaiah contains an apparent reference to both the exiled Israelites (deported between 733 and 720 B.C.) and the exiled Judeans (deported in 701 B.C. and between 598 and 582 B.C.). It says, “On that day the Lord will extend his hand yet a second time to recover the remnant that is left of his people, from Assyria, from Egypt, from Pathros [Upper Egypt], from Ethiopia, from Elam [southwestern Iran], from Shinar [Babylonia], from Hamath [Syria], and from the coastlands of the sea [Greece and the Aegean]. He will raise a signal for the nations, and will assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth” (Isaiah 11:11-12).
These biblical allusions by the prophets are most likely references to the Ten Lost Tribes. For more information about their whereabouts, however, we might also turn to a slightly later biblical source—though one we may not trust as much. Within the Apocrypha, there are two mentions of the deportations, both giving the credit to Shalmaneser V. One of these is found in the Book of Tobit, which is a fairly late source, written somewhere between 225 and 175 B.C.:
This book tells the story of Tobit … who in the days of King Shalmaneser of the Assyrians was taken into captivity from Thisbe, which is to the south of Kedesh Naphtali in Upper Galilee, above Asher toward the west, and north of Phogor. I, Tobit, walked in the ways of truth and righteousness all the days of my life. I performed many acts of charity for my kindred and my people who had gone with me in exile to Nineveh in the land of the Assyrians. (Tobit 1:1-9)
If we can trust this source, noting that the author attributes the exile to Shalmaneser V rather than to Sargon II, then we can add the city of Nineveh to the list of places in Assyria that at least some of the deportees were taken. Interestingly, this would fit well with the suggestion by some scholars who think they may have identified some of the deported Samarians in Neo-Assyrian records at Nineveh, among other places, and that at least some of these exiles, particularly the charioteers, had been incorporated into the Neo-Assyrian army. Others rose even higher; one exiled Israelite from Samaria, a professional soldier by the name of Sama’, apparently came to be a close friend and advisor to Sargon in his court at Nineveh. It is quite possible, therefore, that this fragment from the Book of Tobit contains at least a kernel of truth.
The other passage within the Apocrypha is found in II Esdras 13. Here, the text is even more relevant to the beginning of the mystery of the Ten Lost Tribes, because it actually names them as such. We should note, however, that II Esdras was also composed quite late, probably near the end of the first century A.D. The passage reads:
These are the nine [ten] tribes that were taken away from their own land into exile in the days of King Hoshea, whom Shalmaneser, king of the Assyrians, made captives; he took them across the river [the Euphrates], and they were taken into another land. But they formed this plan for themselves, that they would leave the multitude of the nations and go to a more distant region, where no human beings had ever lived, so that there at least they might keep their statutes that they had not kept in their own land. And they went in by the narrow passages of the Euphrates river. For at that time the Most High performed signs for them, and stopped the channels of the river until they had crossed over. Through that region there was a long way to go, a journey of a year and a half; and that country is called Arzareth. (II Esdras 13:40-45)
The author of II Esdras believed that the deportees, the Ten Lost Tribes, crossed the Euphrates and traveled for a year and a half, eventually settling in a country called Arzareth. Since II Esdras was composed so late, however, we cannot tell if the author is relating an accurate piece of information or is simply guessing where the Ten Lost Tribes ended up. As we shall see, it is this passage that enthusiasts have seized upon in trying to locate the Ten Lost Tribes. But first, we must evaluate the relevant archaeological evidence that is available.
THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL DATA that is relevant to the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel falls into two broad categories. In the first category is the excavated data that might confirm the Neo-Assyrian attacks upon, and annexation of, the northern kingdom during the years 733 to 720 B.C. In other words, we should be able to look at the results from the excavation of sites such as Samaria to see if there are any destruction levels that would correspond to the reported Neo-Assyrian siege(s) and capture of the city. In the second category is the data collected during recent archaeological surveys conducted in the regions of what were once the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah; from these surveys, archaeologists have been able to accurately estimate the Israelite and Judean populations during and immediately after the Neo-Assyrian attacks.
If we turn to the first set of data, we immediately run into a stumbling block, because the excavations at the site of Samaria itself have yielded findings that are open to interpretation. This is due in large part to the manner in which the digging—and subsequent publications—was carried out. The original excavations were conducted by Harvard University and then by a British team that included archaeologist Dame Kathleen Kenyon, who also dug at Jericho and Jerusalem, whom we have met. She was convinced that she had found clear evidence for the Assyrian destruction of Samaria, which she dated to 722 B.C. However, the digging, recording, and storage methods followed by the British team left much to be desired, according to Ron Tappy, professor of Bible and archaeology at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, who conducted a complete reexamination of their excavation results. This has recently called many of their conclusions into question.
The site of Megiddo, photographed here from above, contains more than twenty cities built one upon another over the course of nearly 3,000 years. (Illustration Credits 7.4)
Even though there is clear evidence of Neo-Assyrian occupation at the site, including a fragment of an inscription attributable to Sargon II, as well as pieces of cuneiform tablets and significant quantities of “Assyrian palace ware,” Tappy suggests that “the destruction debris found by Kenyon … does not date to the time of the Assyrian destruction” and believes that it was a “nondestructive Assyrian takeover.” Such a suggestion certainly flies in the face of the Neo-Assyrian and biblical textual accounts, because a three-year siege (or two different sieges, if we separate Shalmaneser V’s actions from those of Sargon II’s) surely would have resulted in some sort of destruction. As a result of his findings, Tappy has called for renewed excavations at the site. Samaria is located in the West Bank, though, and given the conflict embroiling that region, it may be a while before excavations can be resumed.
But what about Megiddo and other major sites that were occupied by the Neo-Assyrians after they took over the area from the northern kingdom of Israel? Here we are in better shape. As Magen Broshi, former curator of the Shrine of the Book at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, and Israel Finkelstein, professor of archaeology at Tel Aviv University, have written: “Signs of destruction are discernible in almost every site excavated in the area of the former Kingdom of Israel: Some, such as Beth Shean, ’Ein Gev, and Khirbet Marjameh, were deserted following their conquest. At other sites there is clear evidence of decline: Hazor Stratum IV; Shechem; Dothan; and Tell el-Far’a (N). Gezer and Dor also show evidence of decline, in spite of their having been Assyrian administrative centers. As for Megiddo and Samaria, the evidence is by no means unequivocal. Both cities underwent considerable change, but it is not clear whether there was a decline in the number of their inhabitants.”
Whether there was a decline in the number of inhabitants or not, the city of Megiddo IVA, as it was called by the University of Chicago team that excavated it, suffered a destruction that was readily observable by the archaeologists excavating various buildings at the site. The destruction can most likely be attributed to the Neo-Assyrians, and therefore dates sometime between 733 and 720 B.C. (from Tiglath-pileser III to Sargon II), because the subsequent city built directly upon the ruins has a completely new layout that is Neo-Assyrian in character. It is as if a city near the Euphrates River, such as Assur for instance, had been picked up, moved several hundred miles, and dropped on top of the mound at Megiddo. Neo-Assyrian palaces, houses, pottery, and other artifacts are all part of Stratum III at Megiddo. It was a grand city, in keeping with the extra-biblical texts that record that it became the capital city of the Neo-Assyrian province known as Magidu, and was home to at least one Neo-Assyrian governor (Itti-Adad-aninu, who was governor in the year 679 B.C.).
Other scholars have noted that sites such as Hazor, Dor, and Kinnereth also boast new Assyrian-style palaces in the cities built or rebuilt following the Neo-Assyrian takeover. Thus, from the data retrieved at Megiddo as well as Samaria (however disputed) and from other sites in what was once northern Israel, we have evidence that confirms the Neo-Assyrians destroyed some cities, resettled others, and in general took over the area and incorporated it into their empire during the years 733 to 720 B.C. and beyond.
However, if we turn now to the second category of evidence, which comes from recent surveys of the regions once inhabited by Israel’s northern kingdom, it becomes clear that Israel was not decimated by the Neo-Assyrians since only about 40,000 of its people were carried off during the years of deportations. Archaeologists say that at least five times and perhaps nearly ten times that many people were living in the region during that time.
The most recent comprehensive archaeological data, published in 1992 by Broshi and Finkelstein, suggest that the population of the northern kingdom of Israel was at least 222,500 and perhaps closer to 350,000 at the time of the Neo-Assyrian invasions. If the Neo-Assyrian sources say that 40,000 Israelites were carried off (13,500 by Tiglath-pileser III and 27,280 by Sargon II), and if there were 222,500 inhabitants at that time, then the Neo-Assyrians would have deported some 20 percent of the kingdom’s population. If the population were as high as 350,000 inhabitants, then the Neo-Assyrians would have deported only a little more than 10 percent of the kingdom’s population. Either way, 80 to 90 percent of the Ten Tribes of Israel would have been left to either stay on the land or flee to Judah (or elsewhere). Therefore, there is no possibility that the Neo-Assyrians carried off the entire membership of the Ten Tribes of northern Israel, regardless of what contemporary or later sources may have thought.
Moreover, in this second category of data are the excavations that have been carried out in the city of Jerusalem itself and the surveys that have been conducted in the hinterland of Judah, especially those done since the Six Day War in 1967. These excavations and surveys, along with subsequent studies published by archaeologists such as Magen Broshi, Jane Cahill, Hillel Geva, Ann Killebrew, Roni Reich, Eli Shukron, Israel Finkelstein, and Dan Bahat provide evidence for a tremendous explosion of growth not only in the city of Jerusalem but in all of Judah during the last decades of the eighth century B.C., just after the fall of Israel’s northern kingdom. According to these studies, the population of Jerusalem suddenly increased “as much as fifteen times, from about one thousand to fifteen thousand inhabitants,” while the population of Judah “which had long hovered at a few tens of thousands, now grew to around 120,000.” Most archaeologists suspect that this sudden expansion is closely related to the collapse of Israel and the sudden influx of large numbers of refugees into Judah.
So although perhaps as many as 20 percent of the inhabitants were carried off into exile, the vast majority of the so-called Ten Lost Tribes went either nowhere or south to Judah. In brief, the Ten Lost Tribes were never lost; we know exactly where they went.
AS WE HAVE MENTIONED, biblical scholars, archaeologists, and ancient historians are reasonably confident that they know where the deported inhabitants were taken, as well as where those who were not deported went. As a result, few professional archaeologists, biblical scholars, or ancient historians, with the welcome exception of Rivka Gonen—who has a Ph.D. in archaeology from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and is currently senior curator of Jewish Ethnography at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem—have bothered to write anything on the possible whereabouts of the Ten Lost Tribes, unless they are reviewing a book or commenting on a television program created by an enthusiast or documentary producer.
However, there is a wide divergence of opinion among these amateur enthusiasts and documentary producers, most of whom haven’t read the scholarly literature or haven’t deigned to follow it, on how to interpret the specific locations in which the biblical account places the exiled members of the Ten Tribes. Thus, suggestions for where these members of the Ten Lost Tribes ended up have ranged from America and Britain to India and Africa, and virtually every place in between.
Surprisingly, most of these enthusiasts do not follow the description in the Book of II Kings that says that the deportees were placed “in Halah, on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.” Rather, they gravitate to the apocryphal Book of II Esdras, which mentions that at some point, the deportees traveled beyond the Euphrates for a year and a half, eventually settling in a country called Arzareth: “They went in by the narrow passages of the Euphrates river. For at that time the Most High performed signs for them, and stopped the channels of the river until they had crossed over. Through that region there was a long way to go, a journey of a year and a half; and that country is called Arzareth” (II Esdras 13:43-45).
As we have noted, II Esdras was probably composed near the end of the first century A.D. This was also approximately the time when Flavius Josephus, the Jewish general turned Roman historian, was writing his histories of the Jewish War and of the Jewish people. Josephus is also one of the first authors to mention these Ten Tribes specifically by that name. He says, “There are but two tribes in Asia and Europe subject to the Romans, while the ten tribes are beyond the Euphrates until now, and are an immense multitude, and not to be estimated by numbers” (Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 11.5.2). Clearly, by the first century A.D. (if not long before), the myth of the Ten Lost Tribes had already begun. The tradition continued thereafter, as seen in rabbinical musings in the Talmud, compiled between the first and fifth centuries A.D.
Enthusiastic efforts to identify where Arzareth was located, and where the Ten Lost Tribes might have ended up, have led to some fairly wild speculations over the years. Just recently, books have been published suggesting that the descendants of the Ten Tribes can be found in the Native Americans of North America, the Falasha of Ethiopia, the Lemba of South Africa, and the B’nai Menashe of India, as well as in Japan, Central Asia, and England, among other places. Some of these books have even reached the best-seller lists. We do not have the space here to discuss the pros and cons of each of these theories. There is really no need to do so, however, for Rivka Gonen, in one of the best—and most serious—books that has been published on the Ten Lost Tribes, points out that Arzareth is not an actual placename, but is instead a corruption of two Hebrew words, Eretz Aheret, and simply means “another land.”
THE BIBLICAL ACCOUNT of the last days of the northern kingdom of Israel seems fairly straightforward, but as we have seen, there are some problems correlating the specific details with the extra-biblical evidence. As we have also mentioned, there was more to the story than the Bible indicates.
We know that after the death of Solomon in about 930 B.C., the United Monarchy established by David and Solomon split in half. The northern part became the kingdom of Israel, with its capital at Samaria; the southern part became the kingdom of Judah, with its capital at Jerusalem. Within a few decades, by the middle of the ninth century B.C., Israel found itself dealing with the rising and belligerent power of Neo-Assyria, a growing empire located north of Babylon, now modern Iraq. The Neo-Assyrians were the dominant power not only in this region but also in most of the ancient Near East before the rise of Nebuchadnezzar and the Neo-Babylonians. While the Neo-Babylonians ruled in the Middle East during the late seventh century and early sixth centuries B.C., the Neo-Assyrians were dominant earlier, in the ninth, eighth, and most of the seventh centuries B.C.
Fortunately, we have plentiful extra-biblical literary materials that allow us to supplement and perhaps confirm the biblical account, since the Neo-Assyrians kept good records and were prone to boasting about their accomplishments, as we have seen. Thus, we know that in 853 B.C., Ahab, king of Israel, sent troops and chariots to a coalition of small kingdoms facing Shalmaneser III and the Neo-Assyrian Empire. In the ensuing Battle of Qarqar, the coalition was defeated, as Shalmaneser reports in his Monolithic Inscription:
I … approached Qarqar. I destroyed, devastated, and burned with fire Qarqar, his royal city. 1,200 chariots, 1,200 cavalry, and 20,000 soldiers of Adad-iri of the land of Imerisu [Aram-Damascus]; 700 chariots, 700 cavalry, and 10,000 soldiers of Irhulenu the Hamathite; 2,000 chariots and 10,000 soldiers of Ahab the Israelite.… Like Adad, I rained destruction upon them.
A few years later, Shalmaneser III forced the new king of Israel, Jehu, to pay him tribute. The Neo-Assyrian Black Obelisk, dated to 838 B.C., shows Jehu bowing before Shalmaneser, with the accompanying text reading: “Tribute of Iaua [Jehu], son of Omri. Silver, gold, a golden bowl, a golden beaker, golden goblets, pitchers of gold, lead, staves [staffs] for the hand of the king, javelins, I received from him.”
As we can see, it was really just a matter of time before the Neo-Assyrians expanded their empire enough to incorporate Israel into their boundaries (which finally occurred near the end of the eighth century B.C.). By the time Tiglath-pileser III, Shalmaneser V, and Sargon II were through with the area, Israel’s northern kingdom had been attacked several times, dismembered, and destroyed, all within a period of less than 20 years. By 720 B.C., it had literally ceased to exist. At least a portion of the population—primarily the upper class, the artisans and craftsmen, and members of the army—was deported to Assyria.
This deportation and repopulation, known in politically correct terms as “population exchange,” was a standard and very deliberate practice of the Neo-Assyrians. As Israel Finkelstein and Neil Silberman said in their book The Bible Unearthed:
This policy had many objectives, which all served the goals of continuing imperial development. From a military point of view, the capture and removal of native villages had the effect of terrorizing and demoralizing the population and splitting them up to prevent further organized resistance.… The forced resettlement of artisans in the centers of the Assyrian heartland boosted the trained human resources at the disposal of the Assyrian economy. And finally, the systemic resettling of new populations in empty or recently conquered territory was intended to expand the overall agricultural output of the empire.
In a rare scene, the Israelite king Jehu bows before the Neo-Assyrian ruler Shalmaneser III on the so-called Black Obelisk. (Illustration Credits 7.5)
The Neo-Assyrians had long been rearranging the populations of the lands they conquered, moving people around as soon as they could. They believed that conquered peoples were less likely to rebel if moved far from their native soil. This policy, harsh as it may seem, was effective.
In fact, Nadav Na’aman suggests that during the period between 733 and 701 B.C., there were several different variations of deportation and repopulation tactics being practiced by the Neo-Assyrians in both Israel and Judah. He notes that Tiglath-pileser III implemented a “one-way” deportation in order “to weaken the national spirit and reduce the possibility of rebellion against the Assyrian government.” Sargon II, on the other hand, instituted a “two-way” deportation “aimed at integrating Palestine into the Assyrian empire.” And Sennacherib (later, in 701 B.C.) initiated a massive “one-way” deportation from the kingdom of Judah in order “to create a balance of power among the small weak kingdoms situated near his border with Egypt.”
The Neo-Assyrians have a well-deserved reputation for cruelty, but in this case their policy of deportation and repopulation may have kept the number of revolts against their empire to a minimum. It probably also kept the number of deaths—and outright genocide—of conquered peoples down as well.
IT IS WITHIN THE historical context of these Neo-Assyrian policies that we must understand the deportations of the Israelites and their replacement by numerous peoples from elsewhere in the Neo-Assyrian Empire. After 720 B.C., or perhaps even earlier, the rolling hills and fertile valleys of what had been the northern kingdom of Israel had become several Neo-Assyrian provinces (such as Samerina and Magidu).
So what happened to the so-called Ten Lost Tribes of Israel? The answer is simple: They are not lost and never were. Yes, the northern kingdom of Israel itself officially ended by 720 B.C., when it was incorporated into the Neo-Assyrian Empire. And yes, inhabitants of Samaria and Israel were indeed deported from 733 to 720 B.C. As the Bible says, at least some of these were exiled “in Halah, on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes”—all places in the Neo-Assyrian Empire. However, only 20 percent of the inhabitants of the northern kingdom of Israel, at most, were sent into exile. A substantial portion of the rest fled as refugees to the southern kingdom of Judah, but the others remained on the land, intermarrying with the new immigrants brought in by Neo-Assyrian overlords as part of their policy of deportation and repopulation. Those who remained and intermarried are said to have become the Samaritans, whose descendants may still live in Israel today.
To summarize, it is clear that at least 40,000 members of the Ten Lost Tribes were indeed sent into exile by the Neo-Assyrians, according to both the biblical account and Neo-Assyrian records, specifically those of Sargon II, who says he carried them off “to Assyria” and replaced them in Samaria with “distant Arabs.” He does not say where exactly in Assyria he carried them off to, but the Bible (which, as we have seen, may or may not give credit to Sargon for doing so) says that the exiled Israelites were sent to “Halah, on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.” These are all areas in Mesopotamia and within the Assyrian Empire, which fits well with scholars’ suggestions that some of the deported Samarians are mentioned in Neo-Assyrian records, such as charioteers who had been incorporated into the Neo-Assyrian army.
While Israel’s northern kingdom was indeed destroyed and a portion of its peoples were carried off by Tiglath-pileser III and Shalmaneser V/Sargon II, these 40,000 Israelites represented only a fraction of the population, 10 to 20 percent at most, since recent archaeological surveys indicate that Israel’s population was between 222,500 and 350,000 inhabitants at that time.
Meanwhile, the archaeological evidence from recent surveys and excavations done in the southern kingdom of Judah indicates that after 720 B.C., the population of Jerusalem increased 15 times over, from 1,000 to 15,000 inhabitants, and the overall population of Judah tripled or quadrupled, from approximately 30,000 or 40,000 people to about 120,000 people. The evidence also indicates a dramatic increase in production and large buildings, which also point toward a population surge. It is unlikely that this surge was caused by anything other than the incorporation of thousands of refugees from the northern kingdom of Israel, who were fleeing the Neo-Assyrians. Since the population of Judah suddenly increased from approximately 40,000 to 120,000 people, there may have been as many as 80,000 such refugees—which also helps to explain why Judah suddenly came out of the backwater and entered the mainstream of the world’s stage at the end of the eighth century B.C.
Moreover, the archaeological evidence from recent surveys and excavations done in the northern kingdom of Israel further indicates that a large percentage of its inhabitants were not exiled or driven to flee as refugees. Instead, they simply stayed put and lived alongside the newcomers imported into the region by their new Neo-Assyrian overlords. Even if 40,000 people were taken into exile and 80,000 fled south to Judah, at least 100,000 more—and perhaps as many as 230,000 people—would have remained in what was once Israel’s northern kingdom.
Thus, I believe the archaeological and textual evidence indicates that Israel’s northern population was divided into three parts after 720 B.C.: 40,000 people were carried off into exile in Assyria; perhaps as many as 80,000 fled as refugees to Judah; and between 100,000 and 230,000 simply stayed put, intermarrying with the newcomers and becoming the group known as the Samaritans.
If this is the case, then the fate that befell the inhabitants of Samaria and the northern kingdom of Israel mirrors exactly the fate that would befall the people of Jerusalem and Judah a little more than a century later, when they suffered at the hands of the Neo-Babylonians from 598 to 586 B.C. It is well documented that they too ended up being split into three groups—those who were carried off into exile in Babylon, those who fled to Egypt as refugees, and those who remained on the land.
We may therefore have another “Myth of the Empty Land” in the north, just as there was later in the south. That is, contrary to what most ancient sources believed (not to mention many modern scholars until recently), in neither case was the land left empty by invaders. While both groups—the northern Israelites in 720 B.C. and the southern Judeans in 586 B.C.—had their capital city besieged and their country captured and annexed, in each case only a portion of the population was exiled, with as much as 70 or 80 percent of the population left behind.
Finally, even if 40,000 people were carried off by the Neo-Assyrians from 733 to 720 B.C., this number pales in comparison with the number of people reportedly deported from Judah in 701 B.C. and exiled to an unknown location by the Neo-Assyrian King Sennacherib, successor to Sargon II. While campaigning in Judah, Sennacherib says that he deported 200,150 people from its cities and villages:
Sennacherib claimed to have led more than 200,000 Judeans into exile in 701 B.C., but this number may be an exaggeration. (Illustration Credits 7.6)
As for Hezekiah, the Judaean, he did not submit to my yoke. I laid siege to 46 of his strong fortified cities, and countless small villages in their vicinity, and conquered them by means of well-stamped earth ramps, and battering rams brought thus near to the walls combined with the attack by foot soldiers, using mines, breeches, as well as sapper work. I brought out of them [the cities and villages] 200,150 people, young and old, male and female, horses, mules, donkeys, camels, big and small cattle beyond number, and counted them booty.
As some scholars have suggested, this figure of 200,150 people is probably a gross exaggeration, especially since, as we have noted, the entire population of Judah was probably no more than about 120,000 people at the time. Nevertheless, it is ironic that some of the refugees who fled south in 720 B.C. may have been subsequently exiled by Sennacherib when he attacked Lachish, Ashkelon, Jerusalem, and more than 40 other cities in Judah in 701 B.C. If so, when they reached Assyria, these new exiles may have greeted old friends and neighbors, or children of old friends and neighbors, who had been carried off approximately 20 years earlier.
Of course, some of them may have eventually come back, while others may have stayed where they were and assimilated, much as some Judeans later chose not to return from Babylon in 538 B.C. when they were allowed to do so by Cyrus the Great. Did any of those who were exiled in 701 B.C. eventually make their way to India or to Ethiopia or elsewhere in the world? Is this really when the Jewish Diaspora first began—not after the Roman destructions of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 and A.D. 135, but after the Neo-Assyrian deportations of 733 to 701 B.C.? It is possible, but it cannot be documented archaeologically, for the most part.
And so, like the Ark of the Covenant and Noah’s ark, it is going to be difficult—if not impossible—to ever find the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. In this case, however, it is not for lack of evidence but simply because the vast majority of these people were never lost. And yet the quest to locate them continues today, as numerous books are published each decade that claim to have found the Lost Tribes or suggest that the author knows where to look. Why that trend continues is one of the most interesting mysteries of all.